The old architecture was dead.
For nine hundred and fifty years, the Sovereign Imperium had gathered its faith horizontally. Temples and chapels had acted as localized reservoirs, funneling the devotion of the masses along ley-lines of stone and iron toward the Eternal Forge. It was a system built for a growing, sprawling population.
But the population was no longer growing. It had been compressed by starvation, purged by steel, and terrified into absolute, unyielding fanaticism. The energy they produced was no longer a gentle river. It was a pressurized shear-force that was actively trying to tear the sky apart.
From the obsidian terrace of the Eternal Forge, Zephyr analyzed the boiling, violet atmosphere.
